True Believers on the Left

Many conservative writers continue to express bewilderment over the Democrats continuing to push their unpopular socialistic agenda. One columnist, Matt Towery of Newsmax wrote:

In my entire career, I have never been as confounded as I am over President Obama and the Democratic leadership's obsession with a piece of legislation that not one major national poll has shown to be popular. A quick glance at this week's surveys shows about a 10 percent spread between those who favor the latest healthcare legislation and those who oppose it.

In the world of politics, that's a blowout. So I have to ask, why are the president and the leaders of Congress willing to see their entire party and a multitude of other policy proposals go down in flames over something that the public can't stand?... Folks, this is nothing more than a power grab. It's an effort to take one of the most essential elements of every person's life — their health — and put it under the control of government… What the White House and Democrats are hoping is that, after the legislation passes, people will forget about the costs and the hassles in the several years that the whole thing takes to implement. They are wrong.

His article is later concluded with, “And take it from me, the tumble the Democrats will take for such a silly move will be massive”.

Mr Towery makes some great points in this excellent article, but I believe his bafflement, like that of most conservatives, is due to underestimating the determination and resolve of the radical socialist left. This is a moment liberals have been waiting for since the sixties. Someone once said, “Thank God, the sixties is dead”. But the anti-establishment radicals from the sixties didn’t die. Instead, they grew up and became the establishment. We rarely see liberals going into engineering, medicine or other technical fields. Most liberals became lawyers, politicians, philosophers, councilors, teachers or enter other professions that can influence the minds and ideology of others. It is certainly no coincidence that liberals completely dominate the various media and entertainment industries.

Dennis Prager made a very profound observation during a speech at the annual retreat of Republican Members of the House a few weeks ago.

Most people on the Left are True Believers. This is critical to understand. They are willing to lose Congress; Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are prepared to lose both houses to get this through. Why? Because losing an election cycle means nothing compared to taking over more of the American economy.

I can give you an example from our side. There are many folks on our side who, if they could pass an amendment against abortion, would happily sacrifice both houses for a period of time. Understand that just as strongly as some are pro-life or religiously Christian or Jewish, that is how strongly many leftists believe in leftism. Leftism is a substitute religion. For the Left, the "health care" bill transcends politics. You are fighting people who will go down with the ship in order to transform this country to a leftist one. And an ever-expanding state is the Left's central credo.

Indeed, a few weeks later, Nancy Pelosi urged her fellow democrats to Sacrifice their Jobs for Health Care. Yet, most conservatives continue to believe that they are dealing with rational people who will reverse course once they realize that the people who they were elected to represent are angry, and that their jobs are in jeopardy.

Unfortunately, Mr Prager’s point was buried deep within a speech prefaced by "I have never been as proud to be a Republican as I have this past year with your unanimity in opposing Obamacare and the other bills that would transform America".

We salute the few Republicans which have battled against the socialistic agenda of the far left, but for every James Inhole and Jim DeMint, there’s a John McCain and Lindsey Graham. When Jim Bunning took a stand against runaway spending this past week, many of his fellow Republicans joined with the Democrats to criticize him for having the audacity to actually question how to pay for another “temporary” entitlement. Their attitude was, “it’s our job to pass bills, not to worry about how to pay for them”.

I believe we owe much of the Republican resistance to health care and other massive programs to pressure from the TEA parties. If not for their outspokenness, no doubt many of the RINOs would be on board with the Democrats. John McCain has been making all the talk shows, complaining about the massive spending bills “forced upon” the people by the Dems, but he fails to mention that he supported many of them, even suspending his presidential campaign to help ramrod through the first so-called stimulus package. Here in Texas, we were recently bombarded by ads during Kay Bailey Hutchison’s campaign for governor, which claimed she was “leading the fight” against Mr Obama’s agenda. Ms Hutchison however, joined Mr McCain in voting for the bailout and National Service Boondoggle, which basically creates a $6 billion slush fund for liberal groups to indoctrinate more youth.

Thus, the TEA party movement needs to resist the call of Sarah Palin and others to choose sides and to join the Republican Party. Without their independent voice, many Republicans would drop, or at least greatly reduce their resistance to these dangerous policies in the spirit of “bi-partisanship”. Even with the TEA party influence, Republican strategy appears to be that of putting up token resistance to win public favor once the left has bankrupted the country. We can’t wait that long. Conservatives must match the passion and the resolve of the liberal left and put up a fight now… and the first step in a battle is to know your opposition.